Making Music with a Twinkle Circle

As a teacher, I struggle with how to teach my students about making music. What does it mean to be musical? How do I teach them about making phrases and connecting the performer's heart and soul with the listener? It seems that however I approach the subject, I lack a connection of insight and understanding with my students. They do not seem to "get it." I explain. I demonstrate. I play examples of fine performances from famous artists. Still, I do not get the response that I desire from everyone. Occasionally I will see a student play "from the heart," but as a whole, I do not get the results that I seek. And then one day, I found the answer!

I showed my students how musicality feels. I let my students feel the experience of making music and feeling others make music. We created the Twinkle Circle.

Let me digress for a moment to attribute this idea to the various sources and roots of my thinking. I have been thinking a long time now about the use of energy. I raise nine miniature dachshunds in my home, and I have a horse, several donkeys, 13 alpacas, and ten chickens. These different creatures respond to different energy approaches, as do different human personalities. I draw my ideas about musical energy from Cesar Milan (The Dog Whisperer), Pat Parelli (The Horse Whisperer), and Edward Kreitman's book, Teaching with an Open Heart. Of course, there are so many possible sources of an idea, but these are the big three that influenced much of my thought in this area.

Music is vibration in the air. Vibration in the air is an expression of energy. We can feel this as well as hear it. We can see the vibrations when we look at our violin strings while we play. When we go to a rock concert, we can feel the rhythmic pulsations. As a seasoned professional musician, I know that we connect our performance of musical energy with our listener. A good performer knows how to do this. How many times have we listened to a "flat" performance from a concert artist? We know that the performance was good; after all, the performer dazzled us with pyrotechnical technique. However, something did not quite "sing" or resonate with our inner being.

I have thought a long time about these questions. As I worked with my animals, I noticed how easily they responded to my use of energy. In this case, when I refer to "energy," I am referring to a definiteness of purposeful motion of some kind. I can stand my ground and block a dog's food bowl just by "claiming" the bowl as my own in my head. I can create a musical phrase by connecting the musical line with my listener. I can feel the zing of my listeners' heart strings when they connect with my musical vibration, and I can weave a musical, magical moment between us.

As I explored these ideas with my students in group classes and lessons, I finally tried out a simple exercise to help my students to begin to feel the energy of musical purpose in the air. We often form a circle in group class just because it eliminates a sense of hierarchy (youngest to oldest) and brings everyone into the same plane in a way. And here is how I used my Twinkle Circle to help my students feel the music:

• I played a "flat" Twinkle theme that was devoid of expression. Then I played a more musical rendition, where I increased the intensity/volume slightly to mirror the direction that the notes went (ascending notes increased in intensity and descending notes decreased). My students heard the difference! They preferred the more beautiful version.
• We played the theme together. As we increased our intensity and volume, we slowly walked toward the center of the circle. We could feel the increasing energy of the other members of the circle as we crept toward each other, and we felt the ebb of energy as we backed away from each other as a phrase ended.
• We played Lightly Row and Aunt Rhody using the same technique. If we thought we should include an "echo" place, then we quickly stepped back to our starting position to indicate the diminished volume.
• When we got to Long, Long Ago, a curious thing happened. We played the first two measures with a growing intensity, then we began to ebb our energy in measure three as the musical line descended in pitch. However, in measure four, there is another "beginning" to the phrase. My students recognized that little "bump in the road" by stepping forward again toward the center of the circle and then creeping backward. I was amazed that they recognized this musical device. In fact, at this point, I was amazed again and again as my students eagerly looked for ways to step into or away from the circle to represent the musical lines.
• Then we played Twinkle theme again but stood in our initial position. Instead of walking away from and toward each other, we played in a way that made each other feel the same energetic ebb and flow that we had created earlier through collapsing and expanding our circle.
• At this point, since my group classes currently include students of all levels from book 1 through the more advanced books, I took the exercise through several other book levels. We played Two Grenadiers and Gavotte in G Minor. We considered how we would do the exercise in the Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor.
• I used this same exercise in my university studio seminar class. We began with Twinkle theme, and then I performed the same exercise with each student individually on one of the student's repertoire pieces: Mozart's Concerto No. 5 (2nd movement), Bach's D Minor Allemande, Handel's Sonata No. 4 in D Major (1st movement), and so on.

This Twinkle Circle exercise produced amazing results for me. My university students play with more musicality now than I have previously heard from them. My private students sound lovely in lessons, and a group ensemble piece is exquisite to hear.

My favorite reaction from the experience was to watch the mothers' faces in the waiting area during that first group class experiment. The mothers' mouths hung wide open as they heard the most beautiful Twinkle Theme that we have ever played.

Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Now what does that title have to do with anything? Well, I read over my blog stats on a daily basis, including which blog posts are popular, where my readers come from, how many readers have visited the site, and what search terms bring readers to my little blog community.

Recently several people have been searching for information about Becker Gavotte, Gossec Gavotte, Gavotte from “Mignon,” and some other songs that I recognized instantly as the ones that typically cause teachers trouble. Hence my title today.

I remember when I first realized that I had teaching problems in my studio. I had been teaching for many years, but at the time I had recently opened up my studio full time. Since I was working long hours every day to accommodate a full studio, I was tired at the end of my teaching day. I did not have the reservoir of patience and creativity that I might have had if I only taught ten to fifteen students. I began to consider what areas of my studio did not produce an energizing return for me, and that is when I discovered how to fix the troubles I saw in my studio. Below are some basic lessons I learned and how I began to figure out how to address the problems.

Listening Deficiency

I noticed that some students had a difficult time learning a new piece. I would have to practically stand on my head or write down the notes with some sort of fingering code in order for the student to remember (or even learn!) the piece. Allegretto stands out in my mind as one of these pieces. Etude, Minuet 3, and Minuet in G were others. When I puzzled over why this might be an issue, I considered what tools I could suggest that would improve the learning process. Why, listening to the recordings frequently, of course! So I asked the parent to play the recording of the piece a few extra times every day, and that is when I really noticed the look on the parent’s face. Oh, they were not doing the listening in the first place, I realized.

I stopped being afraid to talk to parents directly a long time ago. Parents naturally want what is best for their child, and if they do not, then they should. So, I stopped hesitating about bringing up these sorts of issues with parents. I believe that parents should do everything they can do to the best that they can to be sure that their child is able to learn to the best of the child's capability. I cannot expect to place the responsibility of playing the recordings daily on the shoulders of a five year old. Gosh, children need to be prodded to brush their teeth before bed, take baths, and eat their vegetables! And that is when they are still in high school! No, a parent’s touch is required here, and if a parent has trouble remembering to turn on the recordings, then I suggest steps that the parent could take to help his or her memory. Sticky notes are good, alarms on the smart phone work well, and text and email reminders from the teacher are really successful!

Now I frequently ask parents if they are doing the listening every day. Do they have the CD playing in the car? Can they find the CD? If the parent has put the recordings on the child’s electronic device, how has the parent made sure that the child is actually listening to the recording?

If the parent is playing the recordings and the child still has trouble with the new song, then I recommend doing additional “extra” listening every day for a week or two. Usually the problem clears right up in a week once the parent steps up the listening work.

Daily Practice

This issue would seem to be a no-brainer, but yes, there are still parents out there who think that their child can learn a new skill and develop a high level of ability without actually having to practice the instrument every day. There are also parents who may understand the value of daily practice but who seem to think that a minimal amount of effort is all that is needed to accomplish what needs to be done. I even had one parent who was doing the 100 days club requirements but doing a minimal amount of practice for it (5 minutes per child). I let it slide for a while because the daily practice habit was the purpose of the 100 days club, but after awhile I started urging the mom to step it up and increase the amount the children practiced. I knew they could accomplish more than they were. The parent might establish the daily habit of practicing, but by limiting the practice to five minutes, the parent was not enjoying the experience of finding out how good a parent she could be. As any good Suzuki parent will tell you, the practice issues happen after the first five minutes, when the going gets tough and the parent has to draw on good parenting skills and exercise maximum creativity.

Again, I do not hesitate to ask parents and the student how much practice is being done at home. I find that if I phrase the question in certain ways, that I am sure to encourage the parent to do more in the practice department. This is not the time for my open-ended question technique. Here is when I turn on my lawyer charm: Did you practice every day this week? I like to start out by asking whether the parent has practiced with the child the optimum amount, which is every day. The parent may whittle the answer down into a lower amount, but at least they know where the “top” is.

Intonation Problems

Boy was this a tough one to figure out! There were some spots in the Suzuki repertoire that eluded me for a long time in terms of intonation. The teachers all know what songs I mean: Gavotte from “Mignon,” Gavotte in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte to name just a few. Also, as part of the intonation problem, I had to deal with left hands that fell down under the fingerboard or left index fingers that would not stand up, or pinkies that did not play on their tiptoes. I have written several previous blog posts about addressing intonation, so I will not address the issues again in this post. If you would like to revisit those articles, here are the links:

Orange Peel Tone

Ringing Notes and Super Ears

Can You Spell Ševčík

Learning How to Fish

I am sure you have heard of the paraphrased expression: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Well, here is how I learned how to fish, I mean teach, through the problems I saw. Let me use the Gavotte Three as examples (Gavotte from "Mignon," Gavotte in G Minor, and Becker Gavotte). Here are the discovery steps I used to teach myself how to fish:

• Identify the problem
• Specifically identify the problem
• Discover where the technique was first introduced
• Develop a strategy to shore up the technique or prevent the problem in the future
• Figure out how to present my strategy to the student in a palatable way

And here is my further discussion of each of these discovery steps.

Problem: Student plays woefully out of tune. Specifically the student’s left third finger does not stretch high enough, the first finger does not reach low enough, and the pinkie is confused about whether to stretch out to a perfect fourth from the first finger (it is a flat pinkie in the music, after all).

Specific Problem: Usually I will follow the Julie Andrews’ technique of isolating the two notes where the problem occurs. Just as a basketball hoop is missed because of an improper layup or a baseball pitch is missed due to an inadequate swing, so most musical technique problems occur between the note where the mistake is and the note that precedes it. However, in my current problem, I could not identify two notes. Specifically, the problem was that the student did not adequately understand and could not properly execute the appropriate finger pattern. The same problem occurred in both pieces. So the fingering pattern was the problem.

Discover Where the Technique was First Introduced

I identified the technique’s first appearance as somewhere around the Two Grenadiers. To be completely accurate, I could identify the issue as a little exercise that Dr. Suzuki put in the beginning of the previous version of Violin Volume 2, where he had the student hold down the third finger and then silently move the first finger from the regular squared knuckle position to the lowered first finger position of Bb. Once I figured that out, I was able to trace the development of the skill throughout book 2. I found the lowered first finger first in Two Grenadiers. Then I found the finger pattern needed for Book 3 within the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” Ah ha! Now I was onto something.

Develop a Strategy to Shore up the Technique or Prevent the Problem in the Future

From that point of discovery onward, I increased my teaching efforts in book 2 to prepare my student better for the skills required by book 3. I made sure that my student was solid on the lowered first finger in Two Grenadiers, including the little exercise at the beginning of book 2 and using the finger in our Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia game (substitute Bb for every B natural in the song). Then I made sure that the middle section of Mignon was absolutely perfect before moving out of book 2. I will explain in the next section how I accomplished that. These small steps paved the way for a much more enjoyable teaching experience for me, and my students were much better equipped to handle the lessons found in book 3.

• • 
    
  Figure out how to Present my Strategy to the Student in a Palatable Way

I have already mentioned the Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia game. Other ways I presented the new finger pattern was to teach the student about transposition. Students are already transposing when they play Twinkle or other songs on different strings. They may not have enough theory background at this point to understand what they are actually doing, so I bring up the issue now, although Long, Long Ago in Book 2 is a good place as well (since it is transposed from the original A major version of book 1).

Next we transpose Perpetual Motion into the key of Bb. I do this because it teaches the finger pattern that Mignon and book 3 require. I also teach my students to play a Bb scale, 1 octave (on the A and E strings), and also play the scale in thirds. We have been known to work with a tuner too. Even my little ones find the tuner useful as well as fascinating, and working with a tuner also helps my students to learn how to maintain an even tone with the sustained bow.

Armed with these Bb tools, my students are ready to tackle the middle section of Gavotte from “Mignon.” However, before they do, I staple a $1 bill to the bottom of the song in their book 2. I tell my students that this is a dollar spot. In order to earn the dollar, the student must play it perfectly in tune. Whenever that happens, the student can then remove the staples and we paper clip the dollar to the book. The student must then come in the next week and still be able to play the dollar spot perfectly in order to remove the dollar bill and put it in his or her pocket.

I do not let my students collect the dollar unless they absolutely play the passage correctly and in tune. I am very particular about this. The student may take a long time to earn the dollar. We just keep moving along in the book while the student keeps trying. I do not allow the student to move past book 2 until the dollar is won. Usually the student earns the dollar within a few weeks. [And do not worry about going broke stapling dollar bills to students' music books. Usually the parent produces the dollar bill when I ask if they have a dollar for change. They kind of scurry to produce the dollar bill for me so that I do not have to use mine. Very sweet!]

Since I required these small steps in book 2 (and we focus on them in group classes as well), my later book 3 problems disappeared! Similarly, when I used my discovery steps to analyze problems in book 1, I discovered my answers and my solutions earlier in the book.

I have been teaching many years now, so I have had many opportunities to discover problems and solutions throughout the entire Suzuki repertoire, and I have been offering many of my discoveries to you through this blog and its articles. Try using these same questions and make some of your own teaching discoveries, and let me know about it by posting a comment below.

Suzuki Violin Book 2 Musings

Recently a teacher friend of mine mentioned that she was venturing farther into book 2 with her students than she had previously gone, and she asked me for teaching advice. This conversation sparked me to think about the gifts we discover in book 2.

In general book 2 is designed to “unfurl” the student’s left hand. Whereas book 1 remained within the confines of the perfect fourth interval and ventured to widen the reach between the fingers within that perfect fourth interval, book two challenges the student to stretch the reach between all of the fingers and widen the overall interval to an augmented fourth (or diminished fifth) and a perfect fifth. The book introduces four or five new finger pattern combinations and some stretches between the fingers that span across the strings rather than on the same string (e.g., Chorus and Minuet in G). The last third of the book introduces the trill (preparation in Gavotte from Mignon), and the student learns to widen the space between the trill (half step trill in Lully’s Gavotte and whole step trill in Boccherini’s Minuet).

The right hand skills include longer bows and whole bow distribution concepts in legato (Long, Long Ago) and staccato (Hunter’s Chorus). The up-up hooked staccato bowing from the book 1 “Happy Farmer” is quickened in the Long, Long Ago book 2 variation and then lengthened to four up bow staccato notes in the trio to Minuet in G. There is increased complexity of bowing and rhythm combinations: hooked and dotted rhythms (Witches Dance), slurred dotted rhythms (Minuet in G), bow speed variances, louré or portato bowing (Handel Bourreé and Minuet in G), and the beginnings of the “circle back” collé bowing (The Two Grenadiers).

I separate book 2 into two separate books in my head, because the first and second halves seem to belong to different skill perspectives. The first half of book 2 casts an eye back at book 1 in terms of finger patterns and bowing skill sets. The latter half of book 2 looks ahead to the skills needed to advance into books three and four.

Perhaps the trickiest part about teaching book 2 is to figure out how to introduce a new book 2 skill or teaching point. To prepare for early book 2, what I call book 2A, I focus on cementing the skills that book 1 introduced. I find this easy because simultaneously we are going over what we have learned in book 1 in great detail as we polish the book 1 repertoire to prepare a book 1 graduation recital.

To prepare to teach book 2B, the last half of book 2, I introduce new concepts and skill exercises. The first really new skill will be the wider stretch required between the index and second or third fingers in The Two Grenadiers and in Lully Gavotte. Most teachers introduce this stretch by altering Go Tell Aunt Rhody to resemble a more Middle Eastern sound. We play Bb instead of B natural and F natural rather than F# throughout the song:

Aunt Rhody Goes to Saudi Arabia

The parents are usually interested to hear how this change in fingering alters the sound of the song so completely, and the students want to learn this skill because their parents are so interested. This is also a great group class activity, as Aunt Rhody makes a stop in Saudi Arabia when she takes a trip around the world. See my previous post about this: Around the World with Aunt Rhody.

Another new skill in book 2 is the Bb finger pattern, so I introduce the one-octave Bb scale on the A and E strings. We often work with a tuner.

Bb scale, one octave

I find that the best teacher of the Bb finger pattern shows up when the student learns to play the Bb scale in broken thirds:

Bb scale, broken thirds

We definitely use a tuner for the broken thirds exercise to make sure that the third fingers are in tune. This exercise also affords me the opportunity to talk about ringing third fingers in octaves with a lower string:

tuning the 3rd finger

One other useful tool to prepare for the second half of book two is to teach the student how to play Perpetual Motion from book 1 in the key of Bb. Twinkle Theme in Bb is also useful. Once the student has mastered the Bb fingering for Perpetual Motion in Bb, the student will be able to later use this fingering to learn how it feels in various positions:

• Teaching Positions with Bb Perpetual Motion

• Teaching Positions (Filling up the Back Car Seat)

Each song in book 2 requires a different set of previews of skills for both the left and right hands. My purpose here was to give a brief summary overview of some of the major skills that book 2 will introduce and to lay out a few of the basic preparation tools I use to pave the way for teaching the last half of Suzuki violin book two.

Quick Practice Tip: Releasing Tension in the Shoulder

The shoulder is a magnet for tension, especially as the student matures in age. Just about all of my older students or adults exhibit shoulder tension. Shoulder tension must be an adult person's most favorite way to "hold it in." I know that this was the case for me. I still work at it, and I have developed a few tricks to help me set my playing posture in a relaxed way.

Try these three simulations or games away from the violin:

• When driving your car, rest your hands on the steering wheel at the 10 and 2 o'clock positions (please make sure that you are still paying attention to the road!). While you are driving, notice how light your hands feel on the wheel. Now, let your shoulders relax and your arms hang down. If you do this exercise correctly, you will notice that your hands begin to feel fairly heavy and hang from the steering wheel almost enough to pull the wheel down. Your shoulders are now completely relaxed.

• When you are standing in church, rest your hands on the pew back in front of you. Or if you grocery shop instead, rest your hands on the handle of the shopping cart. Notice how light your hands feel on the pew back or shopping cart handle. Now let your shoulders relax and your arms rest downward. If you do this exercise correctly, you will notice that your hands begin to feel fairly heavy and hang from the pew or shopping cart handle quite strongly. Your shoulders are now completely relaxed.

• Spaghetti Arms Game: You will need a partner for this game. Have your partner make fists in both hands and hold up the thumbs like joysticks. You grab onto the "joysticks." Your partner will then swing your arms around wildly, trying to take you for a wild amusement park ride and shake you off. Your goal is to stay connected to the joystick but to allow your partner to flail your arms around wherever your partner wants to go. If you are completely relaxed with "spaghetti arms" and still hanging onto the "joysticks," then your shoulders are completely relaxed. Note that this game is the most similar simulation to that of playing the violin. The joystick is your bow hold, which must be turned on. Your relaxed arms are how your shoulder should be: aware, relaxed, and going wherever it is led.

Try these two simulations with the violin:

• Submarine Air Lock Game: Pretend you are on a submarine, but you need to explore outside the vessel. Go into the air lock chamber. Turn on the mechanism that lets the air out of the chamber. Now you are ready to go outside the vessel. Relate this to the violin.

• Set your bow on the string at the frog. Now, release the air from your shoulder.

• "Set, Sink" are the two commands I use.

• Flat Tire Game: Set your bow on the string at the frog. Now release the air from your tire (shoulder) so that it goes flat.

Carry this to the next level in review work or group class activities:

• Play "Song of the Wind" (violin book 1) and stop after every down bow circle. Recite "Set, Sink" before playing the next note. Make sure your bow hold is impeccable.

• Play "Allegro" (violin book 1) and add  "Set, Sink" after every down bow circle.

• Play "Perpetual Motion" (violin book 1) with a down bow circle after every note. "Set, sink."

• Play "Etude" with a down bow circle after every note. "Set, sink."

• Play "Chorus" (violin book 2) and add "Set, Sink" after every down bow circle.

• Play "The Two Grenadiers" (violin book 2) and note the three down bow circle places. Are you setting and sinking at those places?

• In violin book 4 and the Seitz concertos, there are several opportunities to set and sink the shoulder when placing down bows at the start of new sections. Play these concertos and ask the student to find places where the "set, sink" idea will be effective.

When I first realized how much tension I had allowed to creep into my shoulder while playing my violin, I also found many opportunities to address the issue. I used my teaching in the studio to allow me to practice the exercises I have outlined above. I also found opportunities in symphony rehearsals and concerts to remind myself to "set, sink" before playing The only adjustment I had to make was to get ready to play in symphony a little earlier than usual to allow myself enough time to actually "set, sink." To this day, I still remind myself to "set, sink" after every down bow circle or after I have set my bow on the string.

I also practice this exercise while driving, singing hymns in church, or grocery shopping.